Author: Dan Streible
Love ahead! Part 1
This just went out to everyone registered to attend the Orphan Film Symposium on Love. Gentle colleagues: A first greeting and informational note to everyone registered for the NYU Orphan Film Symposium at Museum of the Moving Image, April 11-14. An exciting week of Love ahead! The dates and times on the Orphans 11 booklet (attached) match what is published at NYU.edu/orphanfilm. Enter MoMI at 36-01 35 Ave. (at 37 Street) in Astoria, Queens. All symposium events are in the museum, with the exception of Thursday’s catered dinner (6pm at nearby Zenon Taverna). You will also get a separate email
Lichtspiel • Ernst • 17.5
When Brigitte Paulowitz of Lichtspiel / Kinemathek (Bern, Switzerland) films from the Richard Ernst Collection of 17.5mm and 35mm Family Films, 1914-1932, we’ll see thirty minutes of sophisticated home movies. And one show-at-home film the grandfather bought, a French travelogue of the Philippines. She tells us that the English translation of the intertitles in Aux îles Philippines (Pathé, 1914) are: T1:The ferryman T2: Banks of the river Pasig T3: Return from the market T4: Hemp being the principal industry in the Philippines, the ropemakers are numerous T5: Laundry T6: Bathing children Although we won’t get
Honoring Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux
The Orphan Film Symposium begins Wednesday evening, April 11. During that same morning Terri Francis and Lina Accurso have organized this significant event in nearby Rye, New York. They will also talk about the Alice B. Russell Micheaux project on Saturday, April 14, 9:30am, as part of the Orphan Film Symposium at Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, NYC. They will be joined by film historian Charlene Regester of the University of North Carolina. Terri shares the news below and invites you to this special event. Honoring Mrs. Alice B. Russell Micheaux from the website of Indiana University Black Film
Leaders in the ACL
Notes by Dan Streible As we are about to celebrate and screen amateur films from around the world at the Orphan Film Symposium on Love, today Thomas Novotney of Novo Digital Media posted this found compilation of leaders made by the Amateur Cinema League during its run (1926-1954). And here’s a piece I wrote in 2014, inspired by all the ACL leaders appearing on my radar at the time the Museum of Modern Art host an Orphan Film screening we called “An Amateur Cinema League of Nations” A session of the same title appears, with all new content, at the
In Sickness and in Health
Cupid in Quarantine Break Its Silence . . . after 100 Years Notes by Adam Andre Coming out of quarantine at the 11th Orphan Film Symposium is Cupid in Quarantine, a 10-minute silent comedy originally released in September 1918 by the Mutual Film Corporation. The one-reeler stars Elinor Field as a young woman who fakes a case of smallpox to foster a love affair with her crush Jack, played by co-star Cullen Landis, making it an opportune choice for the Orphans 11 theme of “Love.” Upon its premiere, Field received a glowing notice in the October 5, 1918 issue of Moving
“Tito’s Cameraman”
New Documentary by Mila Turajlic to Reveal New Perspectives on Yugoslav Cinema Notes by Gregory Helmstetter Stevan Labudovic became known as “Tito’s cameraman” for travelling the world with the president of Yugoslavia, particularly as Tito was helping to establish the Non-Aligned Movement. The filmmaker is also regaled as a national hero in Algeria. As described in a previous blog post, the newsreel veteran is the subject of a forthcoming documentary (working title The Labudovic Reels) by Mila Turajlic, who was working with Labudovic until his passing in 2017. She has long been parsing the archive of Filmske Novosti (Yugoslav Newsreels)
Orphans 2012/2018 at MoMI
Looking Back at Orphans 8: Made to Persuade (2012) Notes by Frannie Trempe In anticipation of the 11th Orphan Film Symposium to be held at Museum of the Moving Image, this post looks back at the last time the biennial event took place at the venue in Queens, New York. Six years ago, the museum served as home for Orphans 8. As with all iterations of the symposium, Orphans 8 showcased a wide array of rediscovered and once-neglected archival treasures—presented both on celluloid and digital projection. Academics, archivists, students, filmmakers, and other moving image enthusiasts from around the world gathered for
Love Doctors and Medical Media
Notes by Winnie Schwaid-Lindner The Medical Movies on the Web project from the National Library of Medicine contains nearly 7,000 films spanning nearly any medical topic imaginable across decades of time. As the project describes itself, the works are “from public health, surgery, and nursing to cancer, tuberculosis, child development, tropical medicine, personal cleanliness, diet, drugs, alcohol, dental hygiene, mental health, and much more. Some are public education films, some are professional training films, and some were made for scientific or medical research.” Available on the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s YouTube page, they are often rare and unique works
Full schedule
NYU Cinema Studies presents the 11th Orphan Film Symposium, April 11 – 14, 2018 Museum of the Moving Image Theme: Love. Wednesday, April 11, 7:00 pm Reception for registered symposiasts Wednesday, 8:00 pm Opening Screening Becca Bender (Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts / NYU MIAP) Discovering the Leopold Godowsky Jr. Collection: Elsa and Albert Einstein visit Hollywood (1931) and the Home Movies of the Co-inventor of Kodachrome Frannie Trempe (NYU MIAP) World Conference of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (1926) Karen Falk (The Jim Henson Company) & Craig Shemin (The Jim Henson Legacy) The Idea Man: Early Films of Jim Henson, including the
Seeing “Mating Games” (1963/2018)
Notes by Robert Joseph Schneider One of the greatest powers of film is the ability to transpose an individual into whatever they’re watching. Roger Ebert famously referred to movies as an “empathy machine,” but I’m most focused on their ability to transport us through time and place. Ethnographic and nonfiction films are one of the best examples of this. Many of us will never go to the Arctic but through the work of Robert Flaherty we may be able to feel as though we have. A number of such films will transport us during the 11th Orphan Film Symposium. Dozens
Found: The Leopold Godowsky Jr. Home Movie Collection
Notes by Becca Bender One would not expect the film collection of a seminal figure in the history of film technology to go missing…. Which makes it extremely surprising that the home movie collection of Leopold Godowsky Jr., co-inventor of Kodak’s Kodachrome film, was found in the archive of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) in the spring of 2017, with no indication of how it got there. The Godowsky Jr. collection consists of 150 films, the overwhelming majority of which are silent, color, 16mm rolls. The dates range from the mid-1920s through 1970, with the bulk having been
[Read on. . . . ] Found: The Leopold Godowsky Jr. Home Movie Collection
Walther Barth’s home movies
Louis Trott, one of the founders of the Tennessee Archive of the Moving Image, will show and discuss Fee and other home movies from the TAMIS Walther Barth Collection at the 11th Orphan Film Symposium. Seven of the 101 reels of 16mm film have been scanned by BB Optics and NYU’s MIAP Program for the event, which runs April 11-14. Seeing Fee Notes by Erica Lopez What was life like in pre-Nazi Germany era? Home movies show us peoples’ experiences that might have been forgotten or lost forever, had someone not rescued these film records often buried in a hallway closet or attic. The Walther
Exploratorium • Symposium • Laserium
Notes by Caroline Z. Oliveira The little-known film experiment Laserimage (Ivan Dryer, 1971-72) is part of the session called Technophilia at the 11th Orphan Film Symposium. On April 13, Kathleen Maguire introduces the premiere screening of a new 16mm print, preserved by Bill Brand (BB Optics) and his students in NYU MIAP’s Film Preservation class. Coordinator of the Cinema Arts Program at The Exploratorium in San Francisco, Maguire (also a MIAP grad, ’08) brought attention to the film’s preservation needs. Ivan Dryer was the originator of commercial laser light shows in 1973, but he had also been an aspiring filmmaker. In
Thousands of tons of ice falling into the water
A GIF from Jennifer Peterson from a digital video created when Dino Everett scanned a silent 16mm nature film in the David Shepard Collection of Educational Films of the 1920s at the University of Southern California’s Hefner Moving Image Archive. — 30 —
The Early Films of Jim Henson
Notes by Anna Tantillo On Wednesday, April 11, the 2018 Orphan Film Symposium begins with an 8pm program at Museum of the Moving Image, The Early Films of Jim Henson. “Early” here means before 1969, when Sesame Street first made his creations famous on children’s television. For many people, when remembering entertainment pioneer Jim Henson, they recall his colorful Muppet creations. While the Muppets certainly have made an enormous impact on viewers, they account for only one portion of Henson’s vast repertoire, which includes shorts, features, sponsored films, experimental work, documentaries, and advertisements. Before the Muppets’ mass popularity on television,
La Fiera Domada (1916/1923)
Notes by Shahed Dowlatshahi Long considered a “lost film,” The Aryan is a 1916 western starring and co-directed by William S. Hart, produced and distributed by the Triangle Film Corporation. No complete copies are known to survive of the movie that was released in 5 reels and running about 50 minutes. However, as with some other presumed-lost films (such as the director’s cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis), the only known copy has been found at the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires. Fernando Peña, with the assistance of Kevin Brownlow, identified the museum’s La Fiera Domada (The Tamed Beast) as a
Program for Orphans 11 : Love
NYU Cinema Studies presents the 11th Orphan Film Symposium, April 11 – 14, 2018 Museum of the Moving Image Theme: Love. Wednesday, April 11, 7:00 pm Reception for registered symposiasts Wednesday, 8:00 pm Opening Screening Becca Bender (Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts / NYU MIAP) Discovering the Leopold Godowsky Jr. Collection: Elsa and Albert Einstein visit Hollywood (1931) and the Home Movies of the Co-inventor of Kodachrome Frannie Trempe (NYU MIAP) World Conference of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (1926) Karen Falk (The Jim Henson Company) & Craig Shemin (The Jim Henson Legacy) The Idea Man: Early Films of Jim Henson, including the newly-restored
Registration Is Open! Here’s a preview of the films and speakers.
Here’s list of films and presenters slated for the 11th Orphan Film Symposium, April 11-14, 2018. It’s about LOVE. Final scheduled coming very soon. Events begin Wednesday, April 11, with a 7pm reception for registrants and an 8pm screening. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: begin with panels at 9:30am; lunch and coffee breaks; panels end at 6pm. After dinner breaks, 8pm screenings each night. Registration is open! And open to all. Join us at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NYC. Click here to register. Galería Cinematográfica Infantil (ca. 1927) Courtesy: Museo del Cine Love: Frontispiece: Fox Movietone News outtakes [Dr. Fritz] Wittels on This Thing Called
[Read on. . . . ] Registration Is Open! Here’s a preview of the films and speakers.
Filmmaker Mila Turajlic with Yugoslav films from the Non-Aligned Movement
Filmmaker (and scholar) Mila Turajlic is on a roll. Her 2017 documentary, The Other Side of Everything, has been garnering wide praise since its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival and acclaim at the International Documentary Filmfestival in Amsterdam. (Or as Variety, which always boils the takeaway down to telegraphic declarations, put it: “Serbian Doc Wins Big at IDFA.”) Meanwhile Turajlic is making another feature-length documentary about the career of Stevan Labudovic, succinctly identified as “Tito’s cameraman.” Labudovic, who died in November 2017, accompanied the president of Yugoslavia on his world tours after Tito co-led the establishment of the international Non-Aligned Movement in 1956.
[Read on. . . . ] Filmmaker Mila Turajlic with Yugoslav films from the Non-Aligned Movement